


Special

by KannaOphelia



Category: Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Genre: Boarding School, F/F, Femslash, Last Term at Malory Towers, One True Pairing, Romance, Romantic Friendship, True Love, Upper Fourth at Malory Towers, saffic, school story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Clarissa have always been special friends. At the verge of adulthood, school friends getting sentimental over each other is no longer so innocent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bill came back to Malory Towers knowing everything had changed. There was a queer tight feeling somewhere in the centre of her stomach when she thought of seeing Clarissa again. They hadn't met for the last fortnight of the holiday, and Clarissa's letters had been oddly stiff affairs. Skulking beneath the usual detailed update on what Merrylegs had done that day, Bill had the odd sense that Clarissa wanted to say much more and wasn't quite sure how.

Bill hadn't minded, quite apart from never minding anything Clarissa did. She understood perfectly, and was aware that her own letters had been rather queer.

Only two weeks, even if they stretched into years, and everything would be settled as soon as they saw each other again. Her brothers left her more or less alone, on the principle that she was of a moody age and if she wanted to waster her hols moping, it was her look out. Girls were odd, sometimes. She devoted herself to Thunder, wrote daily scrawls of letters that didn't really say anything, and counted off the days until Malory Towers.

Clarissa was late coming back, but that was normal, even if it deprived Bill of the pleasure of meeting her on horseback. Even if she hadn't written to say she'd be late. (If the Carters knew, if they'd guessed - but how could they? She'd turn up in the end.) She slipped into class at last midway through the second day, with a quick smile around at the other girls, slipping into the chair that had by common consent been left empty next to Bill. Their gazes caught for a long moment, and Bill felt the blood in her face rise to match the heightened colour on Clarissa's high cheekbones.

Maybe not just as usual, after all.

* * *

Their leave-taking had been uncharacteristically awkward, half of Bill's brothers still at home having elected to come out to the car to bid farewell when it arrived to take their honorary sister back to her own home. Under their eyes and those of the chauffeur, Bill looked down into Clarissa's miserable face and decided that, after all, it was impossible just to say the usual goodbye and remember to write.

Showing too much emotion would be equally impossible.

She put her hands on Clarissa's shoulders, in an agony of self-consciousness, and then they both moved at once to kiss. It was nothing more than a clumsy, fleeting brush of lips, but unprecedented enough that, when Clarissa has been bundled into the car, Bill's brothers teased her mercilessly about her new soppiness.

"That girls' school is turning you into a real girl at last," Jim told her joyfully. "First comes kissing, next comes sewing and floral arrangements. Would you like to embroider me a tea cloth with your own fair hands, Wilhelmina?"

Bill punched him on the arm, the accepted response to something like that, but they teased her all the rest of the holidays. Only Ben, home on leave, had grinned at her with something like understanding, and given her an extra-hard clap on the shoulder. Teeth flashed white in his tanned face, and his eyes were very sympathetic. There had been a moment in which it might have been possible to ask him exactly what he understood, and why he was so sympathetic, but she didn't really have the words to frame the question. Besides, she rather badly wanted to be alone.

Long years of being the only girl in a large family had taught Bill never to offer her brothers something else to tease her about. It was fortunate that family code dictated that, while someone actually in tears was fair game, it wasn't playing fair to comment on red eyes at meal times.

Bill gave up on all attempts at working - promise to Miss Peters or not, no one expected you to really work on the first few days back - and watched Clarissa with what she hoped was covert attention. She was working steadily herself, her eyes on her books but her cheeks still pink. She had bobbed her hair in the intervening fortnight. The combs holding it back were coming out, and at any moment Miss Oakes would say something scathing about neatness and send her back to the dorm, but for now it framed her face in the glossy reddish brown curls that had formerly been pulled by their own weight into mere waves. She looked more grownup, somehow. Even if Bill regretted the loss of the long thick braids, the style suited her, bringing out Clarissa's transient beauty, so much a matter of colouring and so easily and often fading to plainness. Not that Bill wasn't certain Clarissa at her plainest was far sweeter and more appealing than someone like Daphne with her flaunting golden curls and baby blue eyes, or Alicia with her tall elegant darkness. But right at this moment, Bill suspected her Clarissa would be pretty to anyone's eyes. She wasn't entirely certain she liked the thought.

Her rather thin lips were set in concentration. Bill gave up pretending not to stare, trying to realise that the same small mouth had kissed her in the darkness with such intensity that her lips had been grazed by Clarissa's small sharp teeth, had pressed hungrily against her breast as the small hand now clutching that pen had sweetly, unbelievably dipped between Bill's legs… The blood in her face flooded her with heat, and she hastily dropped her gaze to her own books.

Not quickly enough.

"Wilhelmina, I'm certain we're all overjoyed that Clarissa has joined us again, but it would be pleasant if you could spare an equal amount of attention for your work as for your friend."

"Yes, Miss Oakes." Bill tried to keep the sullen note out of her voice, but she couldn't help thinking that Miss Peters wouldn't risk embarrassing Clarissa like that. Wouldn't embarrass Bill like that, she meant.

When she risked another sidelong glance, Clarissa's cheeks were even pinker, but she seemed otherwise unconscious of anything unusual. She looked so very much the quiet, well-bred schoolgirl she always had been that Bill was aware of a lurch of panic. It really didn't seem entirely real, that one delirious night before Clarissa returned to her own family… Maybe she'd dreamed it, out of her own hopeless longings, and convinced herself it was true.

It didn't matter, as long as Clarissa was still her special friend. That had been enough in the beginning, hadn't it?

Well, never quite enough. But close enough.

She'd barely noticed mousy little Clarissa at first, her thoughts caught up in Thunder and riding and the difficulties of readjusting to school after glorious long holidays with her brothers. Clarissa wasn't the kind of girl who forced herself on your attention. Besides, she was Gwendoline Mary's special friend, even Bill had noticed that, which dropped the new girl several pegs in her estimation. It was only when, quite unexpectedly, Clarissa had piped up in class and started to argue with Miss Williams that she paid her much mind. She had missed the beginning of the argument, her mind somewhere out on the cliffs with Thunder, and it was in full swing by the time she tuned in.

"But I tell you, I studied Macbeth with my governess, and nothing like that happened!" Clarissa was blushing deeply, obviously terrified at raising an objection to a mistress, but she plugged steadily on nevertheless, her voice shaking only a little. "There must be something wrong with our copies."

"I assure you, I'm not in the habit of changing deathless prose around for my own peculiar reasons," Miss Williams said dryly. "You're welcome to compare against a copy from the school library. In fact, I would suggest you write the passage out for me in full, three times, until your mind is at rest that I'm reading the correct text. I'll expect it on my desk tomorrow. Can we pass on, now?"

"But -"

"That's enough, Clarissa."

The girl subsided, two angry blots of red still on her pink cheeks.

As they passed out of the classroom, Bill heard Gwen say consolingly, "What a beast Miss Williams is! I wonder that you could endure being scolded like that. I'm sure you're not used to it at home. A governess is far more civilised. Why, Miss Winters -"

"She's not a beast," Clarissa interrupted hastily. "She's awfully decent, really. I shouldn't had contradicted her like that. It's only - horses eating themselves! It's so dreadful I can hardly bear it."

"I always hated that line, too," Bill offered, not really clear on why she was interrupting, except for the passing thought that there was something frightfully likeable about little Clarissa Carter after all, and she deserved better than always being left to Gwendoline Mary's tender mercies. "I always imagined it was Thunder…"

"Your horse? I've seen him." Clarissa's worried expression was wiped away by radiance, flooding her face with light. Why, she was quite pretty, Bill realised, and was surprised at herself for noticing. Clarissa hesitated for a moment, then visibly gathered her courage. "Oh, Bill, do you think-"

"Come on, Clarissa. I'll take you to the library and we can get started," Gwen said.

"But -" The light in Clarissa's eyes faded.

"Come on!"

Clarissa let herself be tugged away by her arm, and Bill felt a flash of irritation and hurt, especially when she caught the words, "Let me tell you all about Bill, who everybody likes so much, and what she did," as the girls hurried away. Not that she cared what any of Gwendoline Mary's friends thought of her. She could fill Clarissa's ears with poison for all she cared.

Besides, what good would it be trying to make friends with a timid, overly cosseted thing like Clarissa in the first place? Bill shouldn't know what to say about her. She'd probably be frightened of Thunder, like that silly Mary-Lou and Daphne, in any case.

She forced down the bitter taste of disappointment, far too tongue-twisting for such a minor incident, and went up to the dorm to change into riding gear. A ride should sort things out.

It was difficult, after that incident, to stop noticing things. How isolated Clarissa seemed, how miserable at times, with Gwendoline whispering continually in her ear. Nasty secrets, if Bill knew her Gwendoline Mary. Yet Clarissa was truly fond of Gwen, that much was clear. Sometimes she would look at her with an affectionate, grateful expression, rather like a horse looking adoringly at its mistress, that made Bill's heart contract painfully. It must be nice to be looked at like that, by someone gentle and trusting, and it was all wasted on that horrid Gwendoline Mary, who obviously cared far more about Clarissa's wealthy and titled parents than her sweet expression.

It had been far more comfortable when Bill really hadn't noticed anything that went on outside the stables and her own head.

When she'd literally stumbled on Clarissa weeping bitterly in the courtyard, her first impulse had been fury at that beast of a Gwendoline for letting Clarissa cry alone. The second was the entirely uncharacteristic impulse to put her arms around the girl and comfort her. She rejected the thought as impossible; even if she had been comfortable with that girlish kind of soppiness towards someone she'd barely spoken two sentences to, she'd probably only alarm the poor girl. Instead, she fell back on instinct, and offered the comfort of a ride with Miss Peters, not really expecting Clarissa to accept.

Certainly she hadn't expected a nervous girl like Clarissa to have a seat like a gentlewoman, hands like silk and an utterly fearless approach to riding.

When they brought their horses in, Clarissa's face was alight, and she was laughing and chattering gaily about Merrylegs at home, her self-consciousness shed somewhere along the ride. Miss Peters had watched her for a moment, a curious expression on her face, and then asked the girls to please take care of her horse together, as she had work to do inside.

Bill absently agreed, her eyes on Clarissa's face, vivid with the pleasure of riding, spectacles slightly askew on her nose, hair escaping in bright tendrils from her bowler, and wire flashing in her smile.

It was the first time she had been aware of the desire to kiss her.

Bill sighed and tried to focus on her work. Instead, she transferred her attention to the clock. She needed to speak to Clarissa; she needed, more than anything, to see her friend look at her for more than a moment.

When class was dismissed at last, Bill didn't bother with manners. She pushed aside Darrell and Sally, who were chummily bent on welcoming Clarissa back, and slipped her arm through her friend's.

Darrell laughed affectionately at her. "I hope you're not intending to drag Clarissa off to the stables already. There's no time before the next class, and you know that jolly well."

Bill forced herself to give a natural grin. "I only want a few words alone with her." She shamelessly begged Darrell with her eyes to understand. "It's been such ages…"

Clarissa's free hand came up to cover Bill's own, where it pressed into her elbow, and Bill felt a stab of relieved joy. "It's just good to see each other again, Darrell. And I was late back."

"Well, go on and whinny to each other for a moment, you queer things." Sally shot them a smile. "Just don't be late to Maths."

"We won't." Bill tugged on Clarissa's arm, the memory of Gwen pulling Clarissa away from her… but never again… floating unpleasantly back to her mind.

The slipped along to the music rooms by unspoken common consent, both silent. With the door closed behind them, Bill released her grip, and they turned to face each other. Except that Clarissa was staring at her own beautifully polished shoes. Terrible awkward silence rose between them, and Bill wanted to break it by screaming. She and Clarissa were never at a loss for what to say to each other.

"Clarissa, I…" She trailed off. "Please look at me, for heaven's sake!" Her voice was gentle despite the words. Raising her voice to Clarissa was something utterly beyond her powers.

"Bill…" Clarissa raised her head. Her eyes were startlingly green, as if they had leached her complexion of all colour to achieve that alarming brightness. "Just promise you're not disgusted by me."

The statement was so utterly ridiculous that Bill found herself at a loss for something to say. The impulse to call her friend an idiotic donkey was almost overwhelming, but she had enough sense to see that would be neither helpful nor kind, and besides, relief was choking in her throat at the same time that the need to comfort Clarissa was making her heart ache. She was altogether in a queer, muddled emotional state.

In the end, she did the simplest and most direct thing she could think of, and held out her arms.

Clarissa flung herself forward with a kind of laughing sob, her arms coming around the taller girl's neck, and Bill caught her tightly around the waist. They held each other close as their breathing began to settle and their hearts to adjust to each other's beat.

"Your letters were so stiff," Clarissa said at last, somewhat accusingly. "You scared me half to death. I thought I was going to come back to school to you saying you'd thought it over and decided Merrylegs wasn't a good influence on Thunder."

"I've never been good at writing," she excused herself. "Besides, yours were just as bad." For all her pious resolution of self-control, she found herself tilting her head to kiss the cheek pressed against hers, and felt her heart pulse at the answering caress on her own cheek. "You might have mentioned something apart from Merrylegs, you know."

"I felt shy, and then I was frightened because you didn't say anything and I started it, after all. Besides… I thought you _wanted_ to hear about Merrylegs."

Bill grinned at the hurt tone, despite herself. "Adorable little idiot. I love Merrylegs half to death. But it's not," she explained very gravely and carefully, leaning back to look down into Clarissa's reddened face, "precisely the same thing."

"Oh." Clarissa, obviously deciding commonsense was too difficult under special circumstances, lifted herself up on tiptoe and kissed her. The first to offer a kiss… And it was odd, after two years of loving her desperately and hopelessly, to adjust to the fact that Clarissa had indeed been the one to start it.

* * *

As far as she was concerned, Bill had pursued Clarissa's friendship almost shamelessly. Every now and then her conscience pricked her just a little. For all her dislike of Gwendoline Lacey, Bill was not unkind by nature, and where Alicia or Daphne might have found Gwen's obvious frustration at suddenly being part of a threesome amusing, Bill sympathised. She would have hated an interloper, if she had been Clarissa's special friend. She didn't pursue that thought further. After all, she was perfectly polite to Gwen always, and she couldn't help it if Clarissa's face always lit up in welcome when she went to join them, and if the conversation always drifted eventually around to horses. It wasn't Bill's fault that Clarissa was a born horsewoman.

She wished she'd realised before that she had a kindred spirit at the school, someone else to whom riding wasn't merely a pleasure but a passion. Clarissa on horseback was entirely different, secure in her own powers and skills, giving herself over entirely to the pleasure of the ride. And Clarissa in the stables was a secret all Bill's own to cherish, hugging to herself the way her new friend lavished the horses with affection, all traces of self-consciousness swept away by love of the great beasts. Yet there was always something there that Bill had identified and liked in the girl who had argued with Miss Williams, a kind of intrinsic sweetness that Bill badly wanted turned on her.

How, she asked herself, was she supposed to leave the other two to themselves when Clarissa always welcomed her with such a dazzling smile? Dazzling in more ways than one, when the wires caught the sun. Bill decided wires, along with spectacles, were rather endearing. She hadn't been conscious of thinking so before.

Her conscience began to ease, in any case, when she started to realise exactly what Gwendoline had been doing to keep her friend so securely under her thumb. Clarissa was so loyal that it was difficult to drag anything out of her, but she was also fundamentally honest, and it was difficult for her to refuse straight questioning. Bill repressed the desire to apologise and comfort with hugs and pats for causing her such misery, then stormed off to confront Gwendoline.

"What do you want?" Gwen eyed her with disfavour. "As if you didn't already spend all your free time tagging along where you're not wanted."

"And why wouldn't I be wanted?" Bill's hand was curved around Gwen's plump upper arm, and she tightened it just enough to discourage the other girl from trying to walk off on her. She felt a stab of compunction – bullying went against her nature – but this was so dreadfully important. "What precisely have you been telling Clarissa about me behind my back, Gwendoline? And about the others?"

"I've said nothing that's not the perfect truth." Gwendoline lifted her chin defiantly, although she licked her lips nervously.

"And put as mean a spin on it as possible," Bill said contemptuously. "Very well. Say what _you_ like about the others – but you're an utter disgusting beast to make your own friend so untrusting of the girls she has to live with – and I'll say what _I_ like about them, and we'll see who Clarissa believes." She caught a triumphant lift in the corner of Gwen's full mouth before she managed to control it, and her disgust doubled. Gwendoline was no better than a gypsy fortune teller, twisting the outward signs to meet her own advantage. "But say one more word against _me_ to her, and I'll forget how I feel about sneaking and gossip, and tell a few tales of her angelic Gwendoline Mary's past to her. We'll see if a lying, treacherous snob is a suitable friend for the Honourable Clarissa Carter, shall we?"

Gwen's spite, or maybe some shreds of genuine affection for her friend, overcame her cowardice, and she lashed out. "Better than a tomboy who smells of horses." She pulled free. "If you're so far above caring about her title, then why do you care so much what she thinks in any case?"

Bill watched her flounce off, golden hair swinging in indignation, without attempting to frame an answer. It was impossible to tell Gwen that she did care, terribly much, and that she wanted Clarissa for her own special friend so fiercely that the universe seemed all askew without her. Especially when Gwen already had her claws deep into the girl.

After that unpleasant encounter , when Gwendoline vanished from school at half term – and Bill did genuinely feel sorry for her if she had a groggy heart, having learned what a difference Clarissa's invalidism made to her life – she gave up on her nagging conscience altogether and spent every minute with the new girl. She gave free reign to her infatuation, and no longer cared about the jilted Gwendoline any more than she cared about the suspicion that the other girls were laughing at the unexpectedness and sudden intimacy of the new friendship.

It took enough self control and sacrifice, after all, not to smother the upturned face with kisses after a long ride, not to catch her hand tight at every moment, without making herself spend time apart from her for no reason at all.

No one could survive complete starvation, at least not indefinitely.


	2. Chapter 2

The kiss was liquid-soft, in its own way as intense with feeling as the fiercer kisses exchanged during that night, but with a quality all its own that was more like being lapped with warm, scented bath water than anything else. Bill caught Clarissa's lower lip between her own and pulled very delicately, made her own answering sound to the sigh she elicited.

When her eyes, closed by instinct, fluttered open, she swallowed her breath. The darkness had robbed her of this, the sight of Clarissa after being kissed, lips slightly parted, lashes slowly quivering open over deep green eyes as they slowly came back into focus. It had robbed her of that glowing look of shameless adoration, loaned poignancy by…

…barely repressed terror.

That shouldn't be there, Bill was certain; it didn't go with the sweetness of the kiss. She frowned, wondering what was causing the other girl's teeth to brush over her lower lips in that uncertain way.

"Don't scowl at me like that, Bill – I'm sorry."

"For what?" She caught at Clarissa's waist as she tried to pull away, her own terror rising.

"For making you do this, if it disgusts you even a little." Clarissa was earnest, but then she generally was, even at her most joyful. She turned a careful attention to life that Bill, honest by nature, understood and appreciated. In this case, though, she did feel her arms locked tight around her special friend should have made it clear enough that she wasn't feeling much disgust. She gave an exasperated, half-laughing snort, which Clarissa ignored, still intent on her own speech. Bill had the impression the poor darling had spent sleepless nights working it out. "I can't help loving you, but that's my fault. It would be just like you to forgive me and pretend to care like I do, like the angel you are, but you'd end up hating me for it. And then I'd die." The last was a simple statement, gravely expressed.

"Idiot." Bill crushed her fiercely closer, feeling their bodies adjust and meld through frocks and blouses, as naturally as if they were made to be pressed against each other. "I couldn't hate you any more that I could hate – Thunder." Not romantic, but she couldn't think of any other way to convey the intensity of what she felt.

"Then you don't mind that I – that I – care so much?"

Bill heard the echo of whispered frantic words in the darkness, felt again the reckless caresses and kisses, her timid Clarissa so savagely tender that one night, and knew it was echoed in the desperate question. She forgot they were at school, that wisdom dictated releasing her friend to go down to class, and let her lips find Clarissa's cheek and ear, dropping indiscriminate kisses.

"I love you more than anything in this world, you sweetheart of a complete and utter donkey," she said wetly against the delicate curves of an ear, with far more love than eloquence.

Clarissa shuddered against her, but her small voice was still stubborn. "But, dearest Bill -"

Bill considered the fact that break was almost definitely over, and they would be late back to class, and someone would come looking for them. Somehow she couldn't make herself realise that not being caught like this was more important than conveying to the little idiot in her arms exactly how she felt about her. She pulled her down onto the seat of the piano, feeling the cover press uncomfortably into her back as she settled her close. "Love you… love you… love you…" She punctuated the words with darts of lips and tongue against ear and throat, something in her responding to the tiny sounds she was drawing out. "Are you trying to convince me not to, old thing?"

Clarissa turned her head and kissed Bill's lips, holding the kiss for long seconds.

"Good," Bill gasped out at last. "Did I seem disgusted that – that night, sweet darling girl?"

Auburn curls shook. "No. But you actually didn't say you cared, either, and after a while I was scared."

"Didn't I?" Bill blinked at her. "Oh… but surely you could have guessed!"

"I thought so, for a bit. But you never said. And you're so generous, always."

Bill looked blankly at her. She knew Clarissa hadn't exactly vast quantities of self-esteem, but somehow it had never occurred to her to extend that to wondering if Clarissa was insecure about her, as well. If she thought about it at all, she would have supposed some of her feelings must have communicated themselves…

She began to grin, despite herself.

"I'm an insensitive, thick-headed fool, but I adore you, and you should know that by now." She kissed the tip of Clarissa's nose. "I'll make up for it, I promise. Just love me, and you won't be able to shut me up, except by kissing me, now."

Clarissa raised her chin, so that she was murmuring against the other girl's mouth. "Now…"

* * *

At the start of the holidays, they had been seventeen going on eighteen. Nearly grown up, and trying not to think about it too much, because leaving school for good loomed all too close. At least on the surface, these autumn holidays hadn't been noticeably different than any others, a sequence of long rides punctuated by meals, picnics and unfortunate wet days, evenings spent with cards, jigsaw puzzles and plans for the next day. They slid through Bill's fingers far too quickly, in a kind of silver stream, pure as water from one of the springs in the hills.

It wasn't that she dreaded the return to Malory Towers, at least not exactly. She enjoyed boarding school, even if she could never quite adjust to being cooped up in a classroom when the weather was begging her to get out into the wind and sunshine on horseback, but she rather liked the mistresses and the other girls, even if none of the others were as easy to talk to as Miss Peters and Clarissa. When they puzzled her, she tended to simply file them away in the portions of her mind marked 'Women – Not Mother' and 'Girls – Not Clarissa', and viewed their eccentricities with an indulgent eye. She just plodded along in her own comfortable manner, escaping with her best friend to ride or to discuss riding at every opportunity, aware of the spiteful undercurrents that sometimes arose but merely taking care to keep herself and Clarissa well away from them. Clarissa, she figured, had experienced enough in the way of pettiness and malice as Gwendoline's friend, and deserved to be shielded from all unpleasantness in the future.

No one at Malory Towers, after her first eventful term, expected Bill to be anything other than what she was; and then, of course, there was Clarissa. She had never missed having a friend, never having known anything but a kind of communal living, first with her brothers and then at school, with her best devotion dedicated to Thunder, but a few weeks after her first ride with Clarissa she was wondering how she had failed to notice how lonely she truly had been. No, Bill was perfectly content at Malory Towers, at least once Gwendoline had surrendered to the inevitable.

School was very pleasant; the holidays were a kind of lovely dream. In her own overcrowded house with the huge stables, or the Carters' home which, even to Bill's uncultured eyes, was mellowed with age and beautiful, with magnificent grounds and the new joys of schooling Thunder to hunt - although soft-hearted Clarissa made sure they were never in at the kill - the flow of days remained sweet and radiantly happy. The house they lived in was irrelevant when the days were spent in country rides and stables.

The only flaw marring Bill's happiness was that Clarissa was to spend the last two weeks home alone with her family. The thought hung heavy over Bill when she allowed it to, but she had a talent for putting unwelcome thoughts out of her curly head.

Perhaps these holidays had been even sweeter than usual, for no clear reason. There had been that moment, on a rainy day spent piled into the same armchair in front of the fire and ostensibly reading rather than dozing, that Bill had looked at their sunburned hands looped casually together and then raised her gaze to met Clarissa watching her in an oddly serious way, her eyes even bigger than usual in her small face. Bill had found it strangely difficult to tear her own gaze away, until little Bobby had brought noise and chatter and puppies into the room and Clarissa had laughed and turned to play with him.

Bill puzzled over the incident later, and decided to put it down to the tendency of an open fire to induce a dream-like, half-awake state. Certainly Clarissa was her natural self afterwards, showing no indication that she had intended to say anything out of the usual. Bill caught a couple of queerly intent glances, that was all.

It was only the night before Clarissa was due to leave for home that matters changed in any substantial way.

Bill was lying awake, feeling stupidly lonely, when she heard her door gently swing open. She rolled onto her side, squinting to make out a slight figure against the faint light from the passageway.

"Bobby?" she asked, pretty sure it was too quiet to be her youngest brother in search of comfort after a bad dream, quite unsure why she was unwilling to call the obvious name.

"Just me. I'm sorry to wake you. I couldn't sleep, and I wanted company." Clarissa shut the door carefully, and padded across to the bed. Bill felt her weight settle on the side, and could dimly discern her outline against the curtained window.

"I couldn't sleep either." She peered more carefully at the suspiciously white figure. "Clarissa Carter, if you didn't bother to put on your dressing gown!" She reached out to grasp a thin arm, feeling the trembling through the linen nightgown. "Don't tell me you didn't wear your slippers either." The figure shook its head. "You precious little ass, you're not fit to dress yourself. Get into bed."

"Oh, but -"

"I'm not having you catch your death of cold." She held up the bed covers. The figure remained motionless for quite an awkward space of time, and for a moment Bill was afraid that Clarissa, sensitive as she was, had resented the scolding, however fond the intent. When she finally stood, Bill was relieved when she turned and slipped under the covers.

She had been right about the slippers; one of her own pyjama legs had become hiked up in her restlessness, and Clarissa's foot was icy against her skin, sending the tiny hairs on her leg bristling. She yelped, and heard a heartless giggle in response as Clarissa took advantage of the difference in their height by pushing her feet between Bill's calves to warm them.

Bill hesitated, but some things were somehow easier in the dark, and it seemed only natural to wrap the shivering girl in her arms and try and warm her with her own body heat. There was a worrying moment when Clarissa held herself stiffly away, then she sighed and snuggled into the embrace.

Longing rose thick in Bill's throat, but she was used to it, and she should be, she told herself, blissfully happy to at least be holding her beloved friend in her arms in this cosy confidential manner. She _was_ in a state of bliss, if it came to that, and she knew she would be holding this memory in her heart for the next long two weeks. It was only that she wanted so very badly to let her hands touch further, trace the subtle lines of the thin body pressed against her, find Clarissa's lips in the darkness and kiss them gently… She scolded herself for being a fool, and kept her hands and mouth exactly where they were.

"Warmer now?" Bill asked at last, when Clarissa had stopped shivering. "You'd better stay here for the night, or at least take my things. I won't have you wandering around in the night half-dressed."

"I'm not half-dressed. And you're terribly sweet, but you needn't fuss - it hardly took me two minutes to get here. I'm nice and cosy now." The protest was muffled against the side of Bill's neck, and she shivered herself at the ticklish warmth. It felt awfully nice, but she was almost sure it shouldn't feel quite as nice as it did. "If you don't mind me staying for the night, I won't deprive you of your dressing gown."

"Of course I don't mind." Bill closed her eyes, allowing herself the luxury of tightening the hug just a little. They lay in silence for a while, but Clarissa's breath remained as quick and shallow as Bill's own, and she was certain she wasn't the only one awake. Perhaps she was uncomfortably squashing Clarissa. Bill tried to release her grip, and failed utterly. Some things were entirely too much to ask, she decided guiltily, and it was no more sensible to try and force herself then it would be if Thunder balked at too difficult a jump.

It was almost a satisfactory excuse to hold her friend tightly.

"Bill?"

"Hmm?" Perhaps she had nearly fallen asleep, when it had come to it. Her voice was heavy with slumber, or with something else.

"I can't bear to go home without you." She could hear her own desolation echoed in the quiet words.

"I don't want you to go, either. Buck up, dear old thing. It's only a fortnight." She kept her voice consciously light, deliberately giving the lie to her own feelings. Besides, what was the sense in talking about feeling badly? She had no desire to sniffle like Gwendoline or Maureen on a first night of term.

She stroked Clarissa's back with one hand, tracing the faint outline of her spine with her fingertips, more out of the need to give comfort than to touch, however wonderful it felt. "I think Mother's succeeded in fattening you up a little," she remarked with some satisfaction. She took pride in Clarissa's improved health, putting it down to riding and eating well instead of moping around like an invalid. Clarissa with pink cheeks, sparkling eyes and riding breeches always felt like a personal triumph. "You resemble a half-starved baby bird far less than you did when school broke up."

"Bill, please!" Clarissa seemed amused and frustrated in equal measure, and the wet tickle of her mouth against Bill's throat as she giggled made her want to cry aloud. "I'm serious."

"So am I."

Clarissa pushed herself up slightly, her head above Bill's as if she was trying to see her expression in the darkness. "I don't know if you realise _quite_ how serious I am," she said slowly.

Bill stayed very still. Even her breathing seemed to become shallow and slight, as if it too was waiting, terrified of being noticed too much and scaring away whatever was about to happen. Her heart was beating too hard, sending echoing pulses through her throat and wrists and somewhere else, deeper inside.

Eventually Clarissa spoke again, so softly and indistinctly Bill had to strain to catch the words. And it was so terribly important she didn't misunderstand.

"I won't see you again until school. This is my last chance for ages to tell you that I… I care, Bill. Far too much."

The kiss took her by surprise, although it shouldn't have; but then, one didn't really imagine something from daydreams to turn up in reality. The unfamiliar sensation of smooth cool lips, pressed against hers with what felt like utter concentration, scattering her own self control to the wind. She tried to catch back the pieces, realising in terror that there was still too much chance that she had it wrong, that Clarissa meant nothing by it more than sisterly love, but her lips were responding despite herself, her hands slipping down to caress and pull closer. Too much, she was risking much too much… But somehow she couldn't feel anything but that the curve and press of flesh through linen under her hands was a natural part of her, as if all the aching love hidden under easy friendship had taken tangible form in the touch of her own hands, as if the lips pressed against hers were part of her own heart.

Clarissa made a small desperate noise against her mouth, legs sliding apart to straddle her friend closer, her hands coming up not to push away but to cradle the sides of Bill's head and kiss her again. Past the lips Clarissa's mouth was not cool at all, but deliciously hot and wet and almost frantic in motion, pushing with her tongue and devouring all at once until Bill was the one who became helpless under the kiss, her mouth responding without conscious commands to the torturing pleasure.

The smaller girl pushed away at last, still pressed tightly enough that Bill could feel the painful heaving of her breast, her breath audibly catching so sharply that anxiety caught at Bill as well. She reached up to stroke her hair.

"Clarissa… angel…" The endearment came as naturally as if she was accustomed to saying the things other girls tossed out so casually, and that she had sometimes wished she had the knack of, but it was so entirely different when she said it herself; perhaps because she had thought of Clarissa like that so many times without saying the words. Perhaps because the other girls didn't feel as she did. _Angel, dearest love, darling… My special friend. My sweetheart._

"My Bill." So serious, Clarissa sounded so entirely serious, and there was a gentle ferocity in the possessiveness. "Will you kiss me again? Please?"

Bill decided that, here in the protecting darkness, she needn't worry, at least for the moment, about whether all this was real. She pulled Clarissa's head down to hers again, and gave up on thinking for the time being. She had so much love stored up for so long, and it was enough to let it out.

* * *

Somehow in the sweet abstraction of the kiss, Clarissa still managed to hear the knock on the door, and sprang to her feet as it opened. Bill, a trifle slower, was left on the piano stool.

"Miss – Miss Peters." Clarissa, flushed and with mussed curls and tie pushed askew by kisses, looked helplessly at the teacher, the picture of guilt. And neither of them had much of a reputation for haunting the music rooms. Bill felt for the first time the utter terrified realisation that the instinct to keep certain things private wasn't the only reason not to kiss like that where just anyone could open the door. The consequences for herself, for Clarissa, swirled in a confused mass of horror in her head as she sent silent pleadings to her favourite mistress.

"Good morning, Clarissa. It's good to see you're back at last. You brought Merrylegs with you again?"

"Yes, Miss Peters. I mean – good morning. Mother was ill… And thank you." Any fool could tell Clarissa was flustered, and Miss Peters was very far from being a fool.

"I'll have to go down to the stables and say hello. And, Bill –"

"Yes, Miss Peters?"

The mistress let her eyes rest on the closed piano cover. "It's all very well to develop a sudden passion for music. But it might be a good idea not to practice in class time, or when you run the risk of being disturbed."

"Yes, Miss Peters. Er… we have English…"

"You'd better hurry up then, hadn't you? You might explain to Miss Oakes that I kept you, to speak to Clarissa about her horse."

Bill gasped incredulous thanks and fled, seizing Clarissa's arm on the way.

"She's an utter trump!"

"Well, she understands," Clarissa said simply.

"Yes." Bill thought of Ben's sympathetic look on the driveway, and wished she had a chance on earth of writing the kind of letter that would find out what she wanted to know. "All the same, we need to be far more careful from now on." They hurried down the staircase, and under the cover of the clatter of their shoes on the staircase, she dared ask, "So… what now, darling?"

They slid into class very meekly and with their gaze down, as befitted sinners, but Clarissa whispered as they made their way to their seats:

"You know, I always rather liked the idea of running a riding school with a special friend."

**Author's Note:**

> Bill is Tami's invention, as is Bill and Clarissa's horror of _Macbeth_.


End file.
